Guarded Treasure Hunters 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

This deck is built around the powerful Guarded player cards : Glamdring, Necklace of Girion and The Arkenstone. The focus on Guarded player cards makes the deck’s playstyle feel fresh (though quite turtley) !

To support this playstyle, the deck is strong at managing locations and enemies with attachments in the staging area thanks to :

• Haldir of Lórien + Ranger Spear + traps : low threat and/or Ranger Spikes keep most enemies in Haldir’s favored range. Traps can lessen the impact of the additional encounter card of Guarded player cards, or only let it affect 1 turn. Play Ranger Spikes before playing a Guarded attachment to nullify the of the enemy that guards it, Entangling Nets to serve the enemy to Haldir of Lórien on a plate, or Ithilien Pit to allow Glorfindel and Haldir of Lórien to combine their attack power when attacking the enemy. If you can, play 1 trap a turn (so you always get Damrod’s discount). You may let traps stack on a single enemy (rather than stagger them) in order to accelerate card draw, if your hand of cards needs a boost.
• Asfaloth + Woodmen's Path : Great combo. If a Guarded attachment gets a location, you can slap Woodmen's Path on it and claim the attachment right away by triggering Asfaloth.

The heroes : Damrod makes the traps work for Haldir of Lórien. Glorfindel has Asfaloth obviously, but also his synergy with Light of Valinor means that after questing he’s a natural to attack enemies caught with Ithilien Pit.

The Guarded attachments : Glamdring is the card that makes the deck sing once on Haldir of Lórien. Since it is restricted however, you might have to make room for it by discarding a Ranger Spear on Haldir of Lórien. Necklace of Girion usually goes on Glorfindel to help pay Unexpected Courage and Jubayr. The Arkenstone is a game-closer, and routinely adds +7-8 . It is basically Sword that was Broken in a non-Aragorn deck. Depending on the quest, it can be more valuable than Necklace of Girion.

The allies : Most of the allies are unique in order to leverage The Arkenstone. The deck is mainly in need of big-time ally defenders (Jubayr, Treebeard) and healers (Warden of Healing, Wellinghall Preserver), as the offense is more than aptly covered by Haldir of Lórien and Glorfindel.

Sideboarding : This is the build I used with great success against The Black Serpent, but you might want to consider these cards against quests with enemies that bypass the staging area too often or have very low engagement costs and annoying engagement effects (e.g., The Steward’s Fear) : Coney in a Trap, Noiseless Movement, Grey Cloak, and cards that can push back engaged enemies into traps waiting in the staging area. In general, the attachments are pretty much canon, but the remaining deck slots should probably be fine-tuned to the quest. This is far from a One Deck.

Starting hand : The ideal hand contains Light of Valinor, Asfaloth, Glamdring, a few traps to get Damrod’s draw engine going and stall the encounter deck, 1 Ranger Spear, 1 Woodmen's Path. The deck has plenty of duplicates, so Daeron's Runes is nice for getting rid of them. A Good Harvest makes playing Unexpected Courage on Haldir of Lórien less of a pain early on.

Solo and multiplayer: Like many trap decks, the deck works best solo, but it is viable in multiplayer too, as it brings a potent ranged attacker, solid sentinel defense in the mid-game (Arwen Undómiel, Jubayr), and an interesting questing power curve (quests for 7 initially, can quest in the upper 20s quite easily in the mid-to-late game).